A troubled Qantas Airbus A380 plane landed in Singapore on Thursday with smoke coming out of its underside and was quickly surrounded by six fire engines, an AFP reporter said.
Fire engines immediately swarmed the aircraft as soon is it landed on the tarmac on Changi Airport.
“I can see smoke coming out of it,” the reporter said.
Debris including what appears to be a piece of the tail of a Qantas jet was also found in the Indonesian town of Batam after a loud mid-air explosion, a witness added.
“I didn’t see a plane crash but I heard a loud explosion in the air. There were metal shards coming down from the sky into an industrial area in Batam,” witness Noor Kanwa told AFP.
Earlier reports said the plane experienced engine trouble over Indonesian territory and attempted an emergency landing in Singapore once it had used up its fuel, an Indonesian official told AFP.
“According to the airport officials in Batam, who received radar information from Singapore, the airplane is trying to make an emergency landing in Singapore,” National Transportation Safety Committee head Tatang Kurniadi said.
Australia’s government said no passengers or crew were injured the Qantas A380 superjumbo was forced to turn back to Singapore with engine trouble.
“The flight has landed safely at Changi Airport and there are no passengers or crew injured,” a foreign department statement said.
In a related development, Qantas Airlines Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said the airline is suspending all flights of its six Airbus A380 jetliners following the mid-air engine problem, according to a report from Associated Press.
Joyce was quoted as saying: “we will suspend those A380 services until we are completely confident that Qantas safety requirements have been met.”
A Singapore Airlines spokesperson said there are no plans to ground all A380 aircraft after the incident.
“There are no plans as of now to ground our A380 aircraft, and operations are continuing as normal. It is premature at this point to speculate and we will await advice from the aircraft and engine manufacturers as the investigation progresses,” the spokesman said in a separate statement.
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